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Motorola RAZR May Come with Unlocked Bootloader, But Not Verizon’s DROID RAZR

Motorola has come up with a working solution for locking or unlocking the bootloader on its devices, and the first one to carry the software solution will be the Motorola RAZR, which will be announced in Australia later this month.

Christy Wyatt, vice-president and general manager for enterprise mobile devices at Motorola, told Irwin Proud that the Motorola team has been working on a locked/unlock bootloader software that will be first incorporated in Motorola RAZR. Proud posted about his chit-chat with Wyatt. However, the final decision about whether to lock or unlock a Motorola device’s bootloader still relies entirely on the phone carriers.

In the U.S., Verizon has officially announced through Twitter that the Motorola DROID RAZR will come with a locked bootloader. As for Optus, we will find out more during its RAZR launch on October 27.

Wyatt also noted that the Motorola will be using volume, carriers, and hardware capabilities as criteria for choosing which devices to incorporate the lock/unlock bootloader software into. Motorola will be posting the list of unlockable or unlocked devices on the Motorola Developers site.

A few months ago, Irwin Proud of Melbourne, Australia, started a campaign to motivate Motorola to unlock its devices–specifically the bootloader. When your Android device has an unlocked bootloader, you have access to run customized Android ROMs such as CyanogenMod and Miui–and change your Android experience.

For now, Motorola is currently reviewing its strategy for upgrading its devices to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich before moving on further in unlocking its bootloader system. Motorola is also mindful in venturing towards unlocked devices, considering that modified codes on the phone might affect the phone’s access to cellular networks.

How do you feel about Verizon’s request to keep the Motorola DROID RAZR’s bootloader locked?

Android is arguably the most flexible mobile operating system. Period. I'm extremely passionate about helping Android users around world get the most out of their Android devices by writing how-to guides and tutorials.